Jake had been wrangled into a sweater in a shade of deep, rustic orange, but he’d drawn the line there. “We’re not the twins you’re dressing up for some mommy-and-me time, Serena,” he’d said. “Touch my footwear and you’ll discover how difficult I can be.”
“Okay. Just a few more of the happy couple, and we should be all set. Do you think I can get you two on the horse?”
“No.”
Becca smothered a laugh. Jake had been against the horse right from the start.
“How about next to it? Becca can have one foot in the stirrup while you look up at her from the ground.”
“No.”
“In the pasture? As backdrop?”
Jake tugged at the sleeves of his sweater, which he’d insisted were too short, and sighed. “Why do I feel as though you’re purposefully antagonizing me now?”
“I’m not,” Greg rushed. “Of course I’m not. Absolutely no horse shots. Got it. Let me set a few things up and we can call it a day.”
Poor Greg. Becca almost felt sorry for him, jumping whenever Jake spoke, his eyes never quite still, as if he expected brimstone to start raining from the sky at any moment.
“That man isn’t a very good photographer.” Her mother planted herself at Becca’s side as the men moved a few bales of hay around. She’d also managed to skip the cowboy boots, but she looked quaintly rustic in a close-fitting velvety brown dress, purchased specifically for today’s theatrics. “I sent Serena the contact information for the woman who did the Halstead engagement photos. What was wrong with her?”
“Jake wanted Greg.”
“But that’s absurd. He’s a nobody. What’s he done?”
Becca stifled a laugh. If her mom had any idea how many Clare photographs could already be attributed to that man’s name, she’d storm back up to the house and refuse to leave her room for days. She’d arrived yesterday and had already threatened to stay in her room four times. No one took her seriously. It was common knowledge her mom would gladly pack up all her life belongings and take up residence in the mother-in-law suite the second anyone asked. She loved this place even more than Serena and Becca did. These sixty acres were the Clare family weakness.
“He doesn’t even have full use of his arm. Does his injury have anything to do with Jake’s?”
“There might be a minor correlation,” Becca lied. “There was a mishap on the grounds a few days ago. A tree branch proved unstable.”
“Well, I’m just glad you two decided to do this thing up properly.” Her mom turned to her and nodded once. It was a good nod, the kind that signaled approval, and Becca was moved to wrap her arms around her mother’s waist and squeeze. Maybe it was all the down-home sentimentality wafting about, but she was glad to have her mom around right now. She wasn’t a bad woman when all was said and done—she just had no idea what to do with a daughter like her. The rest of her brood had turned out amazingly well. “I’ll admit I was a bit shocked at first, but I’ve always liked Jake. He’s a nice boy, and he’ll take good care of you.”
“I love how everyone seems to think that’s enough,” Becca said, mostly to herself.
“What’s that, sweetie?”
She sighed. “I was just wondering when taking care of me became the collective family goal. Wrap me up, hold me tight, pose me and ask me to smile.”
“But Becca—don’t you want to marry Jake?”
“Of course I do,” she said quickly. Too quickly, desperate with the truth. “I share your reservations about Greg, that’s all. I wish we could have had some other photographer.”
But Jake had insisted, and no amount of attempted arguments on her part would sway him. Greg, apparently, was a snake. An enemy snake. A tea snake. And since Jake was a big proponent of the keep-your-friends-close-and-your-enemies-closer school of thought, he’d decided the only way to prevent the man from hurting Becca in the future was to offer him the opportunity of a lifetime. Exclusive coverage of the Montgomery-Clare nuptials...and an ironclad contract that he’d never again so much as look at Becca without permission.
Greg’s turncoat situation wouldn’t make her nearly so annoyed if she’d thought it was a bad idea. But it wasn’t. It was genius. With a single easy tug, Jake had managed to remove one of the biggest thorns in her side. She should have felt relieved and grateful and happy.
She was relieved and grateful and happy. But she was also devastated. This new proactive Jake had wasted no time in tackling his promise to make her okay. He was wiping out her obstacles and clearing her path. He was handing her a better life on a silver platter.
All so he could walk away, guilt-free.
From where he stood chatting with his brother, Jake paused long enough to seek her out, falling into a smile as soon as their eyes met. It was just a tiny lift of the lips, but one that lifted her heart a thousand times higher before dropping it again. Her heart didn’t fare any better when Mr. Montgomery came up to shake her hand, informing her mother that Lily and Evan had requested their grandmother’s help in leaping into a pile a leaves.
For all her faults as a parent, her mom made an excellent grandma. She’d deny those two kids absolutely nothing. With a fond pat on Becca’s cheek, she left her standing alone with her brother-in-law/pretend future-father-in-law/one of the most powerful men on the East Coast. Oh, Lord. She defied anyone to find a situation more fucked up than hers.
She turned to face the head of the family, a man who looked no more powerful than a used-car salesman, his face lined and warm, his body a testament to countless hours behind a desk. “Well, my dear—I think we’ve pulled this off quite credibly.” He gestured at his family with all the satisfaction of a man who knows he’s worked hard and done well. “This should be a good story to sate the masses. If there’s one thing they love more than scandal, it’s a royal wedding.”
“I hardly think Jake and I qualify as royalty.”
“No? Then let’s call it the next best thing. Nobility.” He nodded, finalizing his argument in that one gesture. It was so much like Jake—despotism at its most refined—that Becca had to smile. They might not share the same physique, but the two men were incredibly alike. “And it’s likely to stay that way now that you’ve granted this Greg fellow exclusive rights to the story. Exclusivity has a way of piquing interest like nothing else I’ve encountered in business. It was a great idea.”
“Oh, it wasn’t my idea. I’d have been happy never to see Greg again. This was all Jake.”
“Really? How extraordinary. Every day with you under my roof is turning out to be a revelation.” He nodded at where Greg, Monty and Jake were setting up. “It appears they’ll be busy for a few minutes. Walk with me a ways? Between Jake and Serena making demands on your time, you and I haven’t had a chance to talk yet.”
She smiled nervously. It wasn’t fair to blame Jake and Serena for that—much of her scarcity was due to her careful avoidance of the head of household. She liked Mr. Montgomery, she really did, but he was too much like Jake. A watcher and a waiter. A man who saw almost everything.
“I’m sorry,” she said as they moved along a narrow footpath leading back up to the house. “It’s been kind of a busy few weeks.”
“And likely to get busier. Your mother and sister don’t take this wedding-planning stuff lightly, let me tell you. I think I sampled forty different kinds of cake before they finally picked one—and that was only because I threatened to go into a diabetic coma if they kept it up much longer.”
“Oh, I don’t know that we want to rush the wedding.” It was bad enough now that they had Greg involved and formal pictures with the whole family. The second deposits started being made, she had a hard time seeing her way out of this. “We’re not in a hurry.”
“Of course you’re not,” he said cheerfully. “This one is purely selfish on my part. I’d like to see the two of you
settled down sooner rather than later. You’re good for him.”
“You mean he’s good for me.”
There was that look. The watching look. The waiting look. “That too. You’ve both reached a kind of equilibrium as of late, wouldn’t you say?”
Equilibrium was one word for it. Dependency was another. Desperation also fit.
He patted her hand gently, taking note of the ring, which she’d taken off the necklace for the photos. She had to hold it in place by clasping her thumb in her palm, but it worked well enough for the day.
“It suits you,” he said, touching it lightly around the edges. “A nice, solid stone.”
She glanced down at her finger, at the showy sapphire nestled among the more valuable diamonds, unsure what to say. She felt awful having it on her finger, filling Mr. Montgomery with so much hope, knowing it wasn’t hers to keep.
“It is lovely,” she eventually said.
“I saw the gem on its own once.” He tucked her hand back in his arm. “I had them reinforce the setting before I married Nancy, and they asked if I wanted to hold the sapphire while they had it out. I’m glad I did. I was struck at how fragile it looked without all those diamonds protecting it.”
“It’s probably not the same without the fancy setting.”
“No, not the same,” he agreed. “But the jeweler laughed when I told him how breakable it looked. He said the only way it would shatter was if I took a hammer directly to it—and even then, it wasn’t a sure thing. The diamonds only give it an illusion of strength. They set it off and, in my opinion, make it better, but they don’t change the integrity of the stone. Nothing can do that.”
She continued crunching her cowboy boots along the path, really unsure what to say this time.
“I think they’re ready for you now.” He pointed her back in the direction of the photo shoot. “I believe Jake is planning on taking you into New York soon to get the ring resized. I’d like for you to know you have my blessing to get it reset while you’re there. No—don’t argue. Just because the ring was given to you in one form doesn’t mean it has to stay that way. It’s yours as much as it is ours.”
“I don’t—”
He didn’t let her interrupt, Montgomery to the core. “Keep the diamonds if you want. Wear it as a solid gem. Find a new, different look that works for you. No matter what you choose, it won’t change your standing with me, you understand? You’re part of the family now.”
Becca was left gawping for something to say as Jake strode toward them, the extra-stiff movements of his upper half the only indication that his bones were still knitting back to health inside him.
She knew how he felt. He could try to hide the pain behind a charming smile and a careful walk, but it was there all the same. The best they could do was grin and bear it.
“Are you ready?” he asked, his crooked smile catching on her heart. “We’re almost done now.”
She swallowed and nodded. That was exactly what she was afraid of.
* * *
Jake sat in his father’s office, leaning back in the expensively leather-bound chair bearing the worn impression of an indefatigable work ethic.
It was a little beneath him to sit on the authoritarian side of the desk, but he needed all the extra confidence he could get for the interview to come. There was nothing his dad could say or do to ruin his life—he knew now that only one person had the power to do that—but he’d never before tried to talk to his dad about something this personal.
“I’ll need you to help draft up the assessment, Katie,” his dad’s quietly firm voice said on the opposite side of the door. His personal assistant, a meek woman who would have been better off as a librarian somewhere, pushed open the door as the familiarly rotund figure of his father bustled through. “Ah, never mind. It appears I have a visitor. See that no calls come through, if you please.”
Jake made a motion to rise from the chair, but his dad held up a hand. “Oh, no—stay put. You’re supposed to be taking it easy. Between you, your photographer friend and about half of the downstairs staff who got talked into working out with Becca’s personal trainer this morning, I feel as if we’re running an infirmary.”
Jake chuckled and relaxed into the chair. It was comfortable—his side felt much better here than it did lying on his back. “I should have warned them not to take Max up on his offer. I’m surprised there’s anyone still standing to run this place.”
“It’ll take much more than a man named Mean Max to bring my enterprise to a halt.” His dad spoke with his usual calm confidence and settled himself in the chair opposite the desk. He looked just as at home on that side, settling his hands over his stomach and blinking at Jake expectantly.
Jake’s automatic response was to clamp his lips shut and outstare his dad. Outstare, outlast, outsilence. Win.
He decided to laugh instead. Becca was right. It was an annoying trait to wait and watch, refusing to make the first move. How many times had he stood in front of his dad, squirming and uncomfortable, thinking that exact thing? If only he’d say something. If only he’d give me some indication how he’s feeling.
“I wanted to talk to you about Mom’s ring,” he said, refusing to play that game any longer. He’d never be great at opening his mouth and pouring out his feelings, but this seemed as good a place as any to start.
One of his dad’s bushy eyebrows rose. “Is something wrong with it? Did Becca say something about the setting?”
“Not exactly.” Jake studied his fingernails before realizing that that, too, was an affectation of his father’s. A stalling tactic, a way to make the other person uncomfortable. He forced himself to meet his eyes across the desk instead. “I wanted to know how you proposed.”
“To your mother?”
Jake nodded, not trusting himself to speak. It was ridiculous to get sentimental over this. He hadn’t shed a tear or spared a thought for his mom in years, was long past the age where he felt her loss as anything more than a dull ache of what might have been. And he’d certainly never cared about his parents’ romance before. Like most couples in their socioeconomic circle, the reality of their relationship was much less important than the image of it—and he’d never been allowed to believe they were anything but content with one another.
“Becca seems to think it’s odd that I don’t know how you asked her to marry you,” he said by way of explanation. It was only a small portion of his motivation, but it was the easiest to explain. “She thinks everyone deserves a good proposal story.”
His dad laughed softly and settled more comfortably in his chair. “A good proposal story along the lines of stopping traffic on a bridge in the middle of the day?”
“Or something else,” Jake said quickly. He was uncomfortable dwelling too long on what had—or rather, what hadn’t—happened on the Whitestone Bridge. He’d meant every word he said that day. She was messy and irrational and there was no way to accept her without accepting that her life would never be normal.
But that wasn’t what he needed her to know. That wasn’t why he had to get the next proposal perfect. He would get it right because it was what she deserved. He would get it right because it was what they deserved.
All his other decisions as of late had been easy. He’d sat down with Greg and offered him a way to start repairing some of the damages he’d wrought in Becca’s life—an offer the man wisely accepted when Jake made it clear what the alternative would be. He’d also sat down with Monty and asked to learn more about the grant-making process—more specifically, how he could help select the organizations the Montgomery Foundation served. A lifetime of watching and waiting had rendered him good for almost nothing in this world, but if Becca had taught him only one thing, it was that passing judgments on other people’s hard work was something he could do.
So there. He’d dazzle the world w
ith checkmates that mattered for a change.
This last decision, the most important of all, had been easy to make but not so easy to put into execution. Never before had an outcome loomed so heavily. Losing this—losing Becca—wouldn’t be like losing a yacht or a bet or his dignity. It would be the end of him.
“I know so little about your lives before you got married,” he said, forcing himself to keep his tone level. “Growing up, you were always both so busy with your work—you never really talked about anything personal. I think I knew more about the staffs’ lives than yours.”
His dad lost some of his casual ease, and Jake could tell he was about to close himself off, his defensive hackles on alert. He knew, because that was what he’d do in the exact same situation.
“I’m not complaining. I’m just curious.” He paused. “If I’m asking Becca to wear that ring for the rest of her life, I think it’s only natural to want to know its history.”
His dad jerked out of his seat and grabbed the brandy on the sideboard, pouring himself a liberal two fingers. Since it was rare for his dad to drink before five o’clock—and even rarer for him to drink under any but the most comfortable social or business circumstances, Jake felt a jolt of alarm. “Is it bad?”
He didn’t get an immediate answer, which meant bad barely even began to cover it. Great. He’d given Becca a cursed ring and forced her to keep it on at all times. No wonder things were so unsettled between them, why he felt as if one wrong step would have her closing the door in his face without a chance to outline all his reasons why they should make their engagement real.
“We were lucky in those days that the media wasn’t as involved in our lives,” his dad said, doing little to ease Jake’s mind. “I honestly don’t know how your mother and I would have fared if we had to deal with the same issues you and Becca have ahead of you.”
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